Triple Play 99

Ah, The Good Old Days Of Computer gaming - we hear so much about them, and all the old hackneyed bollocks always comes pouring out: "Yes, the graphics looked like they'd been produced by monkeys with access to a paint program, but the games were real games, weren't they?" Well, no, actually. Not if you liked sports games. There was sod all. The ones that were out there were shite, and looked as if the makers were under orders to base all their work on cave paintings or face having their genitals jammed into a food blender.

Memories

And then there was EA's Earl Weaver Baseball. It looked alright (for the time). It played brilliantly (again, for the time), with intuitive controls for pitching, batting, fielding and base running, and loads of in-game and general options - you could make up teams and create your own leagues at a time when most sports games thought they were being pretty fancy if they gave you more than Team Red and Team Blue. But, more importantly, it worked. I wasn't that bothered about baseball at the time, but I wanted a sports game. My mate, on the other hand, was obsessed with baseball and couldn't believe his luck. So I bought it, and the two of us spent so long playing it our hands developed 'the claw' and we lost the ability to see in natural light.

Back to the present

This, basically, is the same game gone all '90s on us. And it's very good indeed. Unfortunately rit doesn't have the facility for you to make up your own teams, or have great players from the past like its original incarnation. But that didn't stop the old Three-Finger Brown joke, and it shouldn't stop you from buying it.

It has everything the other decent EA Sports games have: the graphics are up there with those in NHL; the sound effects have similarly flowing play-by-play commentary, stadium noise and all that other stuff; and there's shitloads of gameplay options. As well as the usual Exhibition, Playoff and Full Season games, you can make up a Tournament or just play j a quick home-run-hitting competition (if you fancy venting a bit of spleen by whacking a ball about like it was Anthea Turner's head), plus the usual network and modem play.

Mental exercises

For the anal-retentive with the hand-eye co-ordination of a turtle on Mogadon, there are manage-only options, including a full 'college draft' and career management modes which roll over from one year to the next. Even if you're playing, you can still call all the plays and pitches, and shift the outfield and infield about, of course. New to this version, there's a first-person viewpoint when you're batting. It can take some getting used to (especially trying to judge whether a pitch is a ball or a strike), but it's worth a try. I love it - but then I like baseball anyway. Like NHL 98, there's enough here to get into Triple Play 99 even if A you're not normally drawn to the real thing.